


Fealty

by Pennyplainknits



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-08
Updated: 2010-07-08
Packaged: 2018-10-13 07:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10509561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennyplainknits/pseuds/Pennyplainknits
Summary: People called it the year without summer





	

People called it the year without summer. A late, cold spring gave way to a short, wet summer, and then to a frigid autumn. The crops rotted in the fields, and Camelot saw more and more people flow through its gates, seeking shelter and food in the city, though there was little of either to be had. Uther ranted that it must be magic, that no weather like this could possibly be natural, Arthur tried in vain to get him to open the castle stores of grain to the rest of the city. Morgana may have managed it, alternately arguing with Uther and advising him, but she was gone. Gwen missed her more than ever. It had been a year, and she was beginning to feel her hope fade.

Gwen did her best, slipping scraps and crusts of bread from to people when she went into the city for stores, but soon there was precious little to spare even from the kitchens themselves. News began to arrive of attacks on outlying villages, bandits and Saxons and thieves, driven out into the villages by cold and hunger like lice beaten from a rug. Arthur rode out each day with his knights, and returned grim-faced and bloodied more often than not.

"Do you think this is magic?" Gwen asked Merlin, watching the rain stream down and drip off the battlements.

Merlin stirred the mess of lentils in the pot. "I think its bad weather, magic's just a story," he said, but, like so often now, he didn't meet her eyes.

With the snows came winter fever, more virulent than anything Gaius had ever seen. People got chills, coughs and fevers, burning up from the inside out. It swept through the city like wildfire, before spreading up to the castle itself. Gwen and Merlin were kept running from Gauis's quarters to sickbed after sickbed, but nothing Gaius tried seemed to work.

Sir Cadogan was the first Knight to fall ill. Gwen mopped his brow, his hair and skin as dry as tinder, as he coughed and fought to breathe.

"Try to drink, my Lord," she urged, and held the cup to his lips, but he was too weak to even sip.

"Sweet girl," he whispered, and his eyes closed, and did not open again.

Cadogan was only the first. The fever took Knights, Ladies, servants all without discrimination. Gwen spent three days a-bed, with Merlin visiting as often as he could, but she knew she was one of the lucky ones. By some miracle, Arthur was spared. Uther was not so fortunate. To him the fever bought visions, and the tower rooms echoed with his roars of horror and fear as he fought imaginary warlocks or called plaintively for Ygraine and Arthur and Morgana. Gwen, bringing more willow bark tea, saw Merlin's knuckles turn white as Uther ranted.

Uther _lingered_ on the edge of death. The chapel filled with white-shrouded bodies, and the streets seemed almost eerily quiet. And still the bandits attacked. Camelot was like a wounded sheep, and the wolves were circling.

"Where are you going!" She asked, coming across Arthur saddling his destrier on her way back from the town to buy herbs. His knights, those that were yet healthy, were already saddled, wrapped in woollen cloaks over their mail.

"This is my _job_ Guinevere," he said, swinging up into the saddle. "They are my people, and it's my duty to protect them. I can't stop this weather. I can't heal my father. But I can still put Saxons to the sword."

He looked at her. His eyes were very blue.

"Go with luck," she said. He kissed her hand before spurring out of the stables, his knights fanning out behind him.

The snows closed in, and Arthur didn't come back. Not the first night, nor the second. No one had the heart to tell Uther, in his few lucid moments, that his only son was missing.

"How is he?" Gwen asked Merlin as she bought cold compresses to try and bring the fever down. Uther had aged decades, and was a small husk of a man, surrounded by the bed hangings. She could nearly bring herself to feel sorry for him.

"Fading," Gaius answered for him. "It's like he knows Arthur is gone. Nothing we do seems to work. He's sicker than anyone else, but he's lingered longer too. This is past my knowledge."

"Magic?" Gwen asked. It was the only thing she thought it could be. "Should we try and call the Druids?"

"I doubt they would come," Gaius said, stooping over Uther again.

He was wrong.

Five days after Arthur had disappeared, Uther slipped away, dying between one breath and the next. Gwen couldn't mourn him, not the man that had killed her father, sent away Morgana, but she worried. Uther was the only king she'd ever known, and Arthur still had not returned.

"What happens now?" she asked Gaius.

"I wish I knew," he said.

On the third day of mourning, a party arrived at the gates of the castle. A knight, all in plate armour, helm down, astride a grey warhorse. Another man wrapped in a grey wool cloak on a sturdy bay mare, and a young boy that was leading a horse that looked a lot like-

"Arthur's!" Merlin said, and he pushed past Gwen and ran toward the party. The knight reined the horse to a stop, and raised his shield. The weak winter sun shone off the painted design.

"It _can't_ be." Gaius breathed.

"What is that? i don't recognise it?" Gwen asked. It clearly meant something to the castle Knights though, as Sir Kay ran past, sword drawn.

"Who dares wear the device of the House of Gorlois?" He bellowed.

The knight raised the visor of the helm.

"Only she who has the right to it." Morgana replied.

Gwen felt her knees almost give way before she surged forward, but Gaius gripped her arm, preventing her from moving.

"It's _Morgana_ ," she said. "Let me go to her." She struggled.

"Wait-" Gaius said, but Morgana was speaking again.

"Sir Kay," she said. "I am sure you have questions, but we have an injured man. Show them, Davydd."

The man on the bay opened his cloak, and Gwen saw that he had been holding Arthur under it, resting against his chest.

"Guards!" Kay called, and the few guards that were left circled Morgana. "You have done this?" Kay asked

"No!" Morgana said, and the snow swirled in eddies round her horse's hooves. "We found him two days past, injured, close to death. It has taken us this long to travel here. If you want your King to live, you'll let us inside."

There was a sudden whirlwind of activity as Arthur, still on the horse, was led into the warmth of the castle and Gaius's chambers. The lad (Rhys, Morgana called him) took the horses to the stables, and Morgana, still in her armour, with her sword at her hip, walked behind Davydd into the castle. The knights eyed her suspiciously, and swung the door to Gaius's chambers closed in her face.

Morgana lifted off her helm and shook her hair free, two braids tied with green ribbon.

"Gwen," she said, warmly.

This time there was no one to grab hold of her. Gwen ran forward and dropped to her knees, took Morgana's hands in both of hers and kissed them, the traditional show of fealty from servant to mistress, even though she really just wanted to feel that Morgana was there, alive, and that she too, wasn't suffering from fever dreams.

"It's really you," she said, scarcely able to believe it. "You came back."

"I had reason to," Morgana said. She raised up Gwen by their clasped hands until they stood eye to eye.

"Arthur will be glad when he wakes," Gwen said. Morgana's hands were rough as hers, working hands now.

"I didn't just come back for him," Morgana said, and she kissed Gwen's hands, then her mouth. A kiss of companionship, a promise returned. "I came back for you."

END.


End file.
